Social Victorians/People/Queensberry

Also Known As

• Family name: Douglas
• Lord Alfred Douglas
• Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas)
• Marquess of Queensberry
  • John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (6 August 1858 – 31 January 1900)
  • Percy Sholto Douglas, 10th Marquess of Queensberry (31 January 1900 – 1 Aug 1920)
• Viscount Drumlanrig, subsidiary title
• John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1856 – 6 August 1858)
• Francis Archibald Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig (3 February 1867 – 19 October 1894)

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Friends

Francis Archibald Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig

• Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery

Lord Alfred Douglas

• Oscar Wilde

Olive Eleanor Custance

• Nathalie Barney

Timeline

1858 August 6, John Sholto Douglas succeeded his father as Marquess of Queensberry when he was 14.

1866 February 26, John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and Sibyl Montgomery married.

1887, John Sholto Douglas and Sibyl Montgomery divorced; he did not contest the charges of adultery.

1893 June 22, Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig was ennobled with a barony in the U.K. peerage, allowing him to sit in the House of Lords, possibly enabled by Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery.

1893 November 7, John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and Ethel Weeden married.

1894, the marriage between John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and Ethel Weeden was annulled.

1897 June 28, Monday, according to the Morning Post, the Marchioness of Queensberry was invited to the 28 June Queen's Garden Party, the official end of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London. Probably, this would have been Sibyl, since she was the mother of the next Marquis; she and John Sholto Douglas were divorced, but their marriage had not been annulled.

1902 March 4, Lord Alfred Douglas and Olive Eleanor Custance married.

1913, Lord Alfred Douglas and Olive Eleanor Custance separated, living together temporarily in the 1920s before separating again.

Demographics

• Nationality: Scots

Residences

• Family seat: Kinmount House, Dumfriesshire ( – 1896, when John Sholto Douglas sold it)

Family

• John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (20 July 1844 – 31 January 1900)
• Sibyl Montgomery ( – 31 October 1935)

1. Francis Archibald Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig (3 February 1867 – 19 October 1894)
2. Percy Sholto Douglas, 10th Marquess of Queensberry (13 October 1868 – 1 August 1920)
3. Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945)
4. Lord Sholto George Douglas (7 June 1872 – 6 Apr 1942)
5. Lady Edith Gertrude Douglas (31 March 1874 – 20 July 1963)

• Ethel Weeden ()

• Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945)
• Olive Eleanor Custance ( – 12 February 1944)

1. Raymond Wilfred Sholto Douglas (17 November 1902 – 10 October 1964)

Relations

• Lionel Johnson was Lord Alfred Douglas's cousin and introduced him to Oscar Wilde.

Questions and Notes

1. Rumors of a relationship between Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery and Francis Archibald Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig, his private secretary, led Francis Douglas's father, John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry to blame him for "corrupting" his sons Lord Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig and Lord Alfred Douglas.
2. Francis Archibald Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig died of a gunshot wound during a shooting party; the inquest returned "accidental death," but people thought it was likely to have been suicide.
3. John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry was threatening and disliked, and shunned by "high society." In the surge of support and respect for his son, Lord Alfred Douglas, "Bosie," the story was told that the father's last act in life, on his deathbed, was to spit at his son.
4. Lord Alfred Douglas's 1892 "Two Loves" ends with the phrase "the love that dare not speak its name," associated now with Oscar Wilde.
5. Olive Eleanor Custance and Nathalie Barney were in a relationship before she and Lord Alfred Douglas married.
6. Lord Alfred Douglas became publicly anti-Semitic and racist, beginning about 1920; as a part of this, he libeled Winston Churchill in 1922–23 and was sent to prison for 6 months.
7. John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry was violent; his father killed himself; possibly his eldest son did as well; Lord Alfred Douglas's son Raymond was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and spent most of his adult life in St. Andrew's Hospital.
8. "The Queensberry Rules" are rules of boxing written by John Graham Chambers and published under the sponsorship of the Marquess, which accounts for their name.

Bibliography

Lord Alfred Douglas's Works

• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. The Green River.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. "Two Loves" in The Chameleon. 1894.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Poems. 1896.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Perkin Warbeck and Some Other Poems. 1897.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Tails with a Twist: Animal Nonsense Verse. 1898.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. The City of the Soul. 1899.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. The Duke of Berwick. 1899
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. The Dead Poet. 1901.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Sonnets. 1909
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Oscar Wilde and Myself. 1914.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Sonnets - In Excelsis. 1924. (A sonnet sequence, written from the prison Wormwood Scrubs, where he was incarcerated after Winston Churchill prosecuted him for libel.)
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas. 1929. The American edition was called My Friendship with Oscar Wilde.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Sonnets and Lyrics. 1935.
• Douglas, Alfred Bruce. Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up. 1940

Secondary Sources

• "Ethel Weeden." "Person Page – 2066." The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Aristocracy of Britain as Well as the Royal Families of Europe http://thepeerage.com/p2066.htm#i20659 (accessed August 2020).
• Hyde, H. Montgomery. Lord Alfred Douglas: A Biography.
• "John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry." "Person Page – 2066." The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Aristocracy of Britain as Well as the Royal Families of Europe http://thepeerage.com/p2066.htm#i20654 (accessed August 2020).
• "John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Douglas,_9th_Marquess_of_Queensberry (accessed August 2020).
• "Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas." "Person Page – 2355." The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Aristocracy of Britain as Well as the Royal Families of Europe http://thepeerage.com/p2355.htm#i23543 (accessed August 2020).
• "Lord Alfred Douglas." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas (accessed August 2020).
• "Olive Eleanor Custance." "Person Page – 2355." The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Aristocracy of Britain as Well as the Royal Families of Europe http://thepeerage.com/p2355.htm#i23544 (accessed August 2020).
• "Sibyl Montgomery." "Person Page – 2066." The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Aristocracy of Britain as Well as the Royal Families of Europe http://thepeerage.com/p2066.htm#i20655 (accessed August 2020).